Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns a method and an arrangement for the filling of cup-shaped packaging containers with viscous substances such as ice cream from a preferably continuously-operating filling nozzle disposed over a transported series of said cups, in that upon arrival at the nozzle the cups are successively raised quickly up to a position around the filling nozzle, and thereafter lowered in a slower movement corresponding to the increasing degree to which the cup is filled until the upper edge has been lowered to the level of the lower end of the nozzle, after which the cup is displaced horizontally, whereby it is achieved that the upper edge of the cup serves to cut off the string of the mass from the nozzle. In immediate connection herewith, the next cup is fed to the nozzle so that the filling of the next cup can begin without the flow from the nozzle having to be stopped.
This hereby involves relatively simple movements, i.e. a horizontal movement of the series of cups and a vertical movement of the cup in the filling position. It has proved, however, that the relevant vertical movement, which is typically controlled by means of a compressed air cylinder, is nevertheless difficult to control in an optimum manner for achieving a desirably precise top filling of the cups, i.e. without short filling of the cups and without surplus discharge of the filling mass from the nozzle. It is not least at the beginning of each daily production that ice cream masses with different viscosity and specific gravity can appear from the nozzle, and there can be quite long running-in periods during which the filling of the cups is so incorrect that many of these cups have to be discarded almost as unmarketable waste.